YA-8: crossing borders and growing up.

Happy New Year! I hope you’ve all had a lovely festive season and I wish you all the best for the New Year.

2016, aside from the popular opinion of it generally being a crappy year for the world (which I agree with), was a pretty good year on the personal spectrum. I finished my second year at the University of Bath with good marks and a great end-of-year BUSMS show called ‘Encore’. I worked at the Open Days in June, which I would love to do again (I mean, a big point of my posts is to help people who are looking into going to study at Bath, so the Open Days were the next natural step!). I travelled quite a bit; I visited Brighton, Stonehenge, Lacock and Cardiff amongst other places in the UK, I went to Utrecht and Amsterdam to visit Sofia. I had a great summer and enjoyed the sun and surf in my home archipelago. I spent four fantastic months in Fécamp, France as part of my Year Abroad working in an English language school – I met amazing people, went to amazing places (including Mont-St-Michel from my bucket list) and gained valuable experience. And then, right before the year ended, I finally passed my driving test and got my driving license.

I really cannot complain about the past year on a personal scale, and 2017 looks promising too. I hope you will accompany me in my adventures, like a lot of you have over the past two odd years.

Today I come to you with a shorter but more reflexive post; a bit of a reflection about my years of living abroad. However, before I do this, I’m going to bring to your attention a couple of links.

Here is my new Facebook page for the blog, ‘Gathering Smithereens’. I thought it was high time I created a page, since most of my readers come via Facebook links and I think it’s an easy way to keep everybody updated. So head over and give it a like!

And, this is the link to my third post on the University of Bath Placements’ Blog. This time I wrote about ‘Things I’ve Learnt Whilst on Placement Abroad’. I think this is one that anyone will find interesting. I was quite concise but I believe I managed to come up with a couple topics anybody living abroad will identify with – and there are tips in there too!

Now, to the topic of this post.

The feeling you get when you cross borders is one that I have talked about a couple of times already on my blog. However, every time that I shift countries it becomes even clearer and it is something I feel like everybody experiences when they travel abroad for a considerable amount of time. It’s hard to explain really. I mean, when you simply go on holidays for one or two weeks the feeling that fills your head is solely the excitement for the short period you’ll be away – a sunny tropical beach, a snow-covered landscape, a cosmopolitan city – because you know you’ll be back home in a blink. The feeling of crossing a border is different. You still feel the excitement of what awaits you in the new place – the people you’ll meet, the things you’ll see and experience – but a big part of you also feels sad for what you are leaving behind, because you know you won’t be back for a while. It happens when you leave home, but also when you leave the “new” place that has eventually become your home over the period you spent there. It happened to me when I first moved away from home to study at Bath, and every time I come back to Tenerife for the summer holidays and leave my second  home, Bath. It certainly happened to me when I left Bath last June and it also happened when I left Tenerife and went to France at the start of my placement. And when I left Fécamp at the end of it. It will happen again in a couple of weeks when I move to Siena in Italy. And I’m certain it will repeat when I leave in the summer and return to the Canaries. A long time ago I came across this quote on Tumblr. Apparently, it is a quote from a film called ‘Motorcycle Diaries’ which is still in my list of films to watch, and I think it sums up this idea of crossing a border pretty accurately.

The excitement of the unknown is always there for the travelers, but the difference of long-term wanderers in the sadness of leaving behind what you do know.

Similarly, a couple of days ago I came across another picture on Facebook. I have no idea who the author of the quote is; do let me know if you do so I can credit it properly.

Airports. I have a love-hate relationship with them. Physically, I don’t really like them. Dragging suitcases around, queuing at the counter to check-in, having to go through security and then wait for what seems like a life-time for your flight, which is not particularly a better experience than the wait. It is a long and tiring experience. However, from a philosophical point of view, I love airports. As the quote states, they symbolize both an end and a start. They are the crossing at the border that I just talked about, particularly for those like me whose home is a tiny island and so don’t get the privilege of catching the train to go back.

But I think the truest phrase in that image is the last: When I arrive back home from being away, I’m never the same person as when I left. Travelling changes you. I want to believe it is always for the better, that with every experience you live through you learn something new and become a better version of yourself. That is why I love travelling. That is why I overcome the challenges, the long waits at lounges and stations, the strain of pulling three bags up a hill on my own. It doesn’t matter because, at the end of the day, the things you will remember are those which shaped you into the person you are today, not the small annoyances of the journey.

It might sound stupid, but a simple example of how travelling has changed me is in helping me a great deal with my confidence. I am and have always been an introvert. Growing up I was always the listener and rarely the talker and, even though I had quite a large and close group of friends, I have always enjoyed time to myself. By travelling on my own, I have had to get over my shyness because of the situations in my path. When I was at the train station in Massy on my way to Fécamp last September, I was running out of time and didn’t know what to do. The pressure of not missing my train made me lose my inhibitions and ask anyone I came across with if they knew where the platform was – in French, or course. I didn’t care if I made mistakes, I didn’t care what they thought of me, I just needed someone to help me out so I could get myself on that train. In the moment, it wasn’t a great experience, but in retrospect, I’m glad that it happened because it made me realize I am now able to do things I once always tried to avoid.

Travelling has not only showed me amazing places in this world, but it has also allowed me to meet incredible people and helped me shape who I am now. Travelling solo has shown me that I am strong and resourceful and, even though I am still shy and probably will always be, I can take care of myself and solve problems on my own if I have to. I can get out of my shell and go up to people and strike a conversation with them. Yes, I still prefer time to myself, but I am not confined to being alone if not approached anymore. Travelling still makes me anxious at times, but the thrill of what awaits me and knowing that the situations I’ll face will change me are what keep me packing my bags again and again.

I am certain that at the end of 2017 - even in a couple of months for that matter -, I won’t be the Zoe I am today, but I hope the change will be for the better. Life is all about improvement and making the most of your time in this world, isn’t it?